page_title: Sutton Place, Surrey
section_title: 1918–present
hierarchical_section_title: Sutton Place, Surrey / Weston Chapel, Holy Trinity Church, Guildford / 1918–present
caption_attribution_description: English: Sutton Place: East Lodge gates Sutton Place is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house It was built in 1524 and was given by Henry VIII to a courtier, Sir Richard Weston, in return for condemning Lord Buckingham to death. The estate has had a string of famous owners including Jean Paul Getty who spent the last 25 years of his life there before his death in 1976. The estate is currently reputedly owned by Alisher Usmanov, the Russian billionaire who has bought a large financial stake in Arsenal FC. These are the lodges at the eastern entrance to the estate on the A3 London Road, and, I am speculating, this may have been the main entrance to the estate in former times. This view was taken looking across the A3 from the footpath on the far side.
context_page_description: Sutton Place, 3 miles north-east of Guildford in Surrey, is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house built c. 1525 by Sir Richard Weston, courtier of Henry VIII. It is of great importance to art history in showing some of the earliest traces of Italianate renaissance design elements in English architecture. In modern times, the estate has had a series of wealthy owners, a trend started by J. Paul Getty, then the world's richest private citizen, who spent the last 17 years of his life there. Its current owner is the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. A definitive history of the house and manor, first published in 1893, was written by Frederic Harrison, jurist and historian, whose father had acquired the lease in 1874.
context_section_description: George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland (d. 1963).   He modernised the interior.
  J. Paul Getty, who purchased the estate in 1959, was then, or shortly thereafter, the world's richest private citizen. His choice of Sutton Place for his principal residence made the property well known. He adopted a very low personal profile locally, being occasionally seen by Sutton Green villagers driving through in a very old model Cadillac coupé. For the 2017 film All the Money in the World, about the kidnapping of Getty's grandson John Paul Getty III, scenes set at Sutton Place were filmed at Hatfield House.
  Stanley J. Seeger. Sutton Place was sold in 1980, after Getty's death in 1976, by his Getty Oil Corporation, for £8 million, to a company owned by Stanley J. Seeger who established the Sutton Place Heritage Trust to maintain the property. He was an American heir to a family fortune from lumber, petroleum, and other sources, who had begun collecting art whilst a student at Princeton University. He was a patron of arts and educational charities and endowed a chair of Hellenic studies at Princeton University. He is never known to have given an interview. He redecorated Sutton Place and hung some of his modern paintings there including a Bacon triptych. In the early 1980s he commissioned landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe to relandscape the park and gardens.  Although Seeger stated he spent almost £1m a year on maintaining the house, he rarely lived there.
  Frederick R. Koch. After 10 years, Seeger sold it to another American art collector, Frederick R. Koch, who set up the Sutton Place Foundation, and in his turn redecorated the house and used it to display his own art collection to the public. According to The Guardian he is said never to have spent a night under its roof and to have sold it for £32m in 1999. In January 2003, it was offered for sale at £25m. The estate at that time comprised 21 properties, including the 18-bedroom Lady Grove Farmhouse.
  Alisher Usmanov, a Russian businessman, is the present owner. Some of the properties with part of the estate land have now been sold. Lady Grove Farmhouse has been redeveloped into luxury housing. The interiors of Sutton Place House underwent extensive renovation and improvements for its new owner from 2007 to 2009.
caption: East Lodge gates, Sutton Place, on the north side of the A3 road.
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